U13 - Fitness Session with U10, U11, U12 and U13

Tonight we had another group fitness session with 5 teams together.  The U17 boys have not been with us for 2 weeks because many of their boys are in high school soccer and it's a bit much on the body.  We had 59 players in total tonight.  Another good turnout.

Not sure why, but at school today I thought to switch things up a bit.  During the first three sessions we had a 12 minute run, 5 sprints and exercise circuits.

Today we set up 6 stations around the track.  2 were for 5 pushups.  2 were for skipping (10 skips) and 2 were for 10 jumping jacks.  We split the boys up and they ran the track for 30 minutes, stopping to do each exercise.  They started in 6 groups but that spread out quickly.  We told them to get to the station, do their exercise and go, individually, not as a group.  

I have to say I was impressed that all the boys made it through the run, and the U10s have a few runners on their team who can keep a nice pace.

We followed the 30 minute run with 30 minutes of running with the ball performing various sequences along the way.  The tennis courts were organized in 8 rows of 6 cones each and the players were dribbling in and out of the rows eventually making their way back to the beginning.  We worked on moving around the cones with the outside and inside of both feet, dribbling with the left and right foot and eventually a free slalom through the cones.

We had a lot of boys moving with the ball and I didn't coach much past a demonstration and offering tips along the way.  Our goal tonight was to keep them moving, feed off the energy and get their foot on the ball.   They literally had the ball on their foot while running for at least 25 of the 30 minutes.  Hopefully the coaches take the turns we were doing and work on them at team training.  I have some good turning exercises I hope to share with them soon.

I was so happy that it worked out and feedback was good with a few good suggestions.  Parents were able to help and our parents who run can join us for a full 30-minute run now.  It's great to have parents out.

There are things that need to be worked out.  We need to put some markers around the track to protect the runners from the track club who are there every Thursday.  I also need to appoint a parent to do an accurate head count earlier so we can plan the next part properly.  We were short skipping ropes ( in my opinion) but Coach John said he will get a few more.

Onward and upward.